Tony Roche

Anthony "Tony" Dalton Roche, AO MBE (born 17 May 1945) is a former professional Australian tennis player, native of Tarcutta. He played junior tennis in the New South Wales regional city of Wagga Wagga. He won one Grand Slam singles title and thirteen Grand Slam doubles titles, and was ranked as high as World No. 2 by Lance Tingay of The Daily Telegraph in 1969. He also coached multi-Grand Slam winning World No. 1s, Ivan Lendl, Patrick Rafter, Roger Federer, Lleyton Hewitt and former World No. 4, Jelena Dokic.

Playing career

Roche started to play tennis at school when he was nine. His father, a butcher, and mother were recreational tennis players and encouraged his interest. Roche grew up playing in Australia under the tutelage of Harry Hopman, who also coached other Australian tennis players such as Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall.

A left-hander, Roche had a successful singles and double career. He won one singles Grand Slam tournament, the 1966 French Open at Roland Garros, defeating István Gulyás in the final. He was five times the runner-up at Grand Slam tournaments: the French Championships in 1965 and 1967, losing to Fred Stolle and Roy Emerson respectively, Wimbledon in 1968, losing to Rod Laver, and the US Open in 1969 and 1970, losing to Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall. With compatriot John Newcombe, he won 12 Grand Slam men's doubles tournaments.

Tony Roche (writer)

Tony Roche is a television and radio comedy writer, best known as one of the members of the writing team behind the award-winning BBC Television series The Thick of It and its film spin-off In the Loop.

He is credited with inventing the word omnishambles, which was named 2012 Word of the Year by the Oxford English Dictionary.

Stand-up and radio

After graduating from Warwick University with a degree in English, Roche became a stand-up comedian using material from a magazine he had produced in his final year. He was spotted at one of his stand-up comedy shows and asked to write jokes and topical sketches for radio.

Roche's first radio assignment was writing for The Alan Davies Show radio programme and for John Shuttleworth on BBC Radio 4. He created the series World of Pub for BBC Radio, and later adapted it for television. He also worked on the radio series The Sunday Format,

Television

Working with the creator of The Sunday Format, John Morton, Roche co-created its television equivalent Broken News. After making his move to television, Roche joined the writing team for Armando Iannucci's Gash, a satirical TV comedy for Channel 4. He later contributed to The Thick of It, Iannucci's political satire set in the fictional government Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship. The first series debuted on the BBC in 2005, and became a critical success. Roche wrote for all four series of the programme, as well as its spin-off film In the Loop, which was nominated for the 2010 Academy Award for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay).